Falling in love with myself/my world and understanding Binge Eating Disorder

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meals

I visited with my Great Aunt the other day. She is one of my oldest living relatives connecting me to my ancestors of the past. I love her house and her land. It is the land my father played on as a child and I can just feel all the memories and happy times there. I wish in so many ways I could have experienced what it was like to grow up there. But, as I sat with my aunt and looked at all the photos, I had an idea of what this must have been like. In the days when my own father was a child, about 60 years ago, all the children would run and play outside. All of the houses of my relatives were all lined up down the street and everyone knew each other. They would spend hours swinging and rafting in the river, and just being outside playing in the dirt. They also gardened and grew their own food. They would pick fresh food from the garden and lovingly prepare family meals together.

This pie is a blueberry pie I made. It is my great aunt’s recipe, and it is de-licious. Today’s world feels disjointed, rushed and busy sometimes. So many times in my life, I have used food to fill a void inside of me that yearns for long sun-filled days in the garden and big family meals at night. I have craved community. It is not about the pie or the food really, but what it represents. It represents a coming together, a sharing in the harvest. This is something people have done forever. The meal was a ceremony. It was sacred in it’s own very special way. Have we lost that? I don’t think entirely, but I do think we have to work to preserve it. I think we have to preserve what it means to be present at family/friend meals, and I think we have to recognize that to share in a meal is so often to share a bit of ourselves with another.

The other side of this is that we can’t be afraid to enjoy that piece of homemade pie. Enjoy it, feel the love that was put into making it and feel grateful for every bite. I am honestly forever grateful that I now have this recipe to share with my family and friends. It will forever remind me of sun-filled days and precious memories of those I love.